Week 1: Day 5

Psalm 103:1-4                  “Let my whole being bless the Lord! Let everything inside me bless his holy name! Let my whole being bless the Lord and never forget all his good deeds: how God forgives all your sins, heals your sickness, saves your life from the pit,”

Spiritual Exercise:     My 18 month-year-old son’s constant state is one of idling joy. Then there are moments when something or someone steps on the gas and the idling revs up into unmitigated rapture. His whole being, body, soul and heart thrills and throbs with delight and bliss. He knows exactly what the psalmist is saying when he write ‘My whole being bless the Lord, everything inside me bless his holy name!’

                                     God loves it when we are full of joy in him. When our whole being resonates with wonder and excitement at His goodness and love. But how do we do that apart from taking medication?! Well one way is to use psalms like this one and make it your own. Begin speaking the words of the psalm out loud and in your heart ask the Holy Spirit to make these biblical words your own heart words. There is power in the words of the Bible, if we let them loose in our hearts there is not telling what could happen and what could be set free.

Week 1: Day 4

Today’s Scripture:     Romans 5:5 “…God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us”

Spiritual Exercise      I love this verse. St Paul describes one of the key activities of the Holy Spirit which is to ‘pour out’ God’s love into our hearts. God’s love, which is so immense, so beautiful, so rich, beneficial, so life giving;  ‘Poured out’, generous libations of God’s kindness and goodness poured out into ‘our hearts’ not our brains, but our hearts. Jesus says we are to Ask, Seek and Knock, to keep on asking, again and again and again for the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, who ‘pours out his love into our hearts’ (Luke 11:9-13)

                                      I think we know it if God is pouring out his love into your hearts. If he isn’t then lets ASK! Let’s do that today. In the busyness of our day when we have a moments pause or hesitation lets pray inwardly “Dear Father, pour out your love into my heart through the Holy Spirit whom you have given!”

Week 1: Day 3

Today’s Scripture:     John 15: 9 “As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love.”

Spiritual Exercise:     Today we are going to try some ‘remaining’ or ‘abiding’ - as some other translations have this passage. Jesus says that to life the life which is blessed by God we are to ‘remain/abide’ in him and his love. God the Father loves us, Jesus his Son loves us – remain in his love. Stay in his love.

Begin today be thanking God for his love. Pray a prayer like this: “Dear Father in heaven, thank you that you love me, I want to live in your love today. Send your Holy Spirit upon me today to show me how to live in this way of love. In Jesus name I pray. Amen”

Now go through today with this simple prayer in your heart and on your lips, “I want to remain in your love”. Before you get into your car; before you pick up your phone to answer or make a call; before you have step into a store, pray this prayer!

Week 1: Day 2

Today’s Scripture:     Psalm 62:11-12 “One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard, that you O God are loving and you O God are strong”

Spiritual Exercise:     God has spoken but do we hear him? With the ears of our hearts have we ‘heard’ and ‘know’ his love and power for us? Doubts will always come into our heads but faith ‘dares to believe’ God’s word. So when you say this scripture (out loud!) thank God for his love and power for you!

Something to do:       There will almost defiantly be someplace in your life right now where you doubt either God’s love for you or God’s power to actually make a difference. What is it? Name it. Apologise to God for doubting him and ask him to reveal his love and power in that area right now. Begin to speak this verse into that area. Timing is all God’s. Faith is believing that he can do it, in his time, in his way for his glory and for our salvation.

Week 1: Day 1

Today’s Scripture:     Psalm 116:1 “I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.”

Spiritual Exercise:     I love this verse. It’s a memorised emergency prayer I pray when I feel I am growing distant from God.  It makes me articulate the simple fact that ‘I LOVE GOD!’  I do. My emotions go up and down, sometimes I feel I am a great Christian and sometimes I feel I am a Christian disaster area but when put on the spot, which sometimes I am, I realise I love God so much and one of the big reasons I love him so much is that he is SO MERCIFUL!  I don’t get what I deserve.  I deserve wrath, anger and abandonment and what I get is love, mercy and forgiveness.

Something to do:       So, especially if you are starting the day with this and you are in a place where you can do this without disturbing others. Stand up. Stretch out your hands to heaven and say, out loud, ‘I love the Lord, for he heard my voice, he heard my cry for mercy!’ Do that several times out loud until you start to feel your heart engage with what you are declaring, or the neighbors start knocking on the wall!

Lent Week 1

In this first week we are going to focus upon the simple Biblcial promise that God loves us and wishes us endless joy, life adn bliss. That sounds lovely but it si one thing to hear and even believe it in our heads and another to have the truth alive in our hearts.

One simple way of ‘believing’ God’s word and internalizing His truth in our hearts is the meditation and the memorization of Scripture.

So here we go. Each exercise should only take a few minutes. If you can find a regular time in the day to do it, switch off your phone and start with the surprising truth that God is more ready to meet with you than you are with him!

This week, if you can, I want you to write out the Scripture for the day, put it in your pocket or have it on your smart phone, and at one point during the day say the reading quietly to yourself.  Find “hard points” in your day which you could tie the Scripture to.  For example: I make a lot of phone calls during a day so before I pick up my phone I will pause and say to myself the given scripture of the day.

Spiritual Exercises for Lent 2013

Here you will find some very ‘simple’ spiritual exercises for this Lent. There are no rules, just suggestions to help you focus upon God and what he has for us.

Jesus said: “I have come to give life, life in all of its fullness” (John 10:10)

So the first goal of these exercises is to help us get more of this ‘life’ that Jesus is talking about; the good life, the love life, the blessed life that God has for us.  

The second goal of these exercises is to give the Holy Spirit some space to pin point anything in us that is acting as a barrier to moving more fully into this life.

So, here we go…